After doing Warbringer’s recent album I happily find myself able to review yet another crushing thrash band that’s been terrorizing everyone since 2017. Enforced recently released their second full length and first with Century Media Records titled “Kill Grid”. Hailing from Richmond Virginia these thrashers are a punishing mix of more extreme melodic metal and hardcore. This leads to some pretty vast tempo changes in their music. One second you can be in a circle pit, next thing you know everyone is hardcore dancing.
Kill Grid offers a unique blend that I think a lot of listeners can appreciate and most importantly enjoy. With influences from Iron Reagan and Morbid Angel and the same cover artist of Motorhead and Vitriol there really isn’t much to dislike about them. The guitar tone is warped straight from the 80’s, big time scoop and moderate amounts of gain I absolutely love the sound of the instruments on this album.
The first particular part of the album that popped out to me was in the third track “Beneath Me” which in my opinion is their best, and my favorite. Towards the end there’s a massive tempo drop into a grooved breakdown and I absolutely couldn’t miss it. Sometimes it takes me a little bit to really dig in and feel everything that’s going on and it didn’t take long with them, these guys just have “ït” as song writers. On top of that they have a pretty large feature artist on a few songs to lay down leads in Josh Francisco (BloodRitual, Outsider).
I’m really happy to see thrash making its resurgence. I feel like for a decade or so thrash wasn’t really being pushed forward by any new blood. It was the usual Metallica’s, exodus’s, testament’s and so on. The new guys, Enforced included, are absolutely killing it and I really hope this is a trend that continues. Kill Grid is one hundred percent worth the listen and many beyond.
Review by: Aaron
Record Label: Century Media Records
Line-Up:
Knox Colby – vocals
Will Wagstaff – guitar
Zach Monahan – guitar
Ethan Gensurowsky – bass
Alex Bishop – drums
Kill Grid Tracklist (41:04):
1. The Doctrine (4:40)
2. UXO (4:03)
3. Beneath Me (2:30)
4. Malignance (4:21)
5. Kill Grid (7:08)
6. Curtain Fire (4:34)
7. Hemorrhage (4:36)
8. Blood Ribbon (3:51)
9. Trespasser (5:21)